Sunset Park
I meet Brenda Blanco at the corner.
I say that if she’d been wearing un traje rojo
then she’d be Brenda Blanco frum da Bronx.
She ain’t. Still, Brenda Blanco from Brooklyn
is fine anytime. I’ll leave this neighbourhood
for Blighty in a few hours. It’s a good place:
working, mainly Hispanic, people.
We’re walking for cawfee.
I laugh at a fried chicken outlet – Pollo Campano.
The frontage picture of a perky chicken
in a fancy hat makes me think of gay cock.
She laughs too, at my pronunciation of pollo:
Spanish isn’t one of my M25 languages.
She explains that campano means ‘from the country’.
I tip her the wink. In the cawfee shop, she orders a slice
and I try to get one too. The heffe looks puzzled as I ask
and then smiles with recognition as I point.
‘I like how you ask for what you want before you point,’
she tells me. ‘You know he won’t understand you.’
True, but my asking lets him know my manners are good.
The dollars may be crumpled but my nickels and dimes all shine.
